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Thursday, 10 January 2013

Here's my second map made this year. I used to make these since the game came out but Heroes Of Might And Magic III maps too quite a bit work to do, so I had a long break. Bit more happy with this one than with The Unexpected Guest (Allies), though. I've play-tested this with several times and it seems decently well balanced. Perhaps the Inferno at fast glance seems hardest to play, but they are all playable, and I didn't see bit oddities or overly good heroes of enemies compared to the rest at the end-game, when I finished this map last time.

So, here's the map info, and in case the upload link gets broken please just post to this thread and ask for re-upload!:

Important update (25.1.2015):

Caverns of Eden belongs to my recently released HOMM III XL map-pack. All updates in the future considering this and the other maps, as well as the download itself, can be found at this post:

-Rebalanced some money issues by limiting town structure buildings in several

neutral towns

-Set fixed levels for any Azure and Crystal Dragons, that do not grow over time

COMPATIBILITY: Heroes of Might And Magic III - Shadow of Death

MAP SIZE: XL

DIFFICULTY: Hard

TEAMS: 4 teams -

2 (Rampart, Tower) VS.

2 (Dungeon, Inferno) VS.

2 (Fortress, Castle) VS.

2 (Stronghold, Necropolis)

STORY:

No story, just good old fashioned brawl

THE IDEA:

Idea was to make a symmetrical map with limited passages from area to each other preventing too much cat-and-mouse games and making it balanced between the teams since theres 4 teams all together. Above the ground area is quite small with few limited island, but underground is full scale. Due this and full 8 player action, there will be a lot of action going on, and careful planning of strategies is necessary, even more so since resources and money in the beginning are quite limited, and neutral forces are decently strong.

This map aims you think where to put your emphasise and where to spend your troops, since there's no too much freebies around. For example there are only bunch of powerful Relics to be found, but those few are even more precious.

It also supports the idea that even after 4-6 months time of game play there won't be overly unbalanced situation whereas some of the heroes would be really over the-the-top with their stats, since there's only limited number of treasures and bonus granting buildings around the map.

The neutral Conflux in the middle on underground is powerful (with some bonuses), to which all initial starting area paths lead, and a town above the ground in middle-island is even more powerful, but they are guarded by very strong monsters. Do you want to risk it to capture those towns, thus dominating middle of the map with fast reach to your enemy castles in the corners of the map, but weakening your flanks, or do you rush for the small island towns which are located between you and your enemies at the edge of the map? Or perhaps you take a defensive tactic and see what's behind your initial starting town facing away from the action?

For those who want heroes and their stats to stay reasonable until the end of the map!